Hundreds of people participated in the 7th Annual Last Night DIY New Year's Parade on December 31st, 2011 in downtown Santa Cruz. Hundreds more lined Pacific Avenue to watch and document the grassroots New Year's Eve celebration created by the community. The event has become both a homespun, family-friendly alternative celebration and a controversial embarrassment for the city.

Every New Year's since 2005, the DIY celebration has been peaceful, creative, and fun. However, because of its lack of official sanction, civic leaders have opposed the celebration from the beginning. In 2010, police tried to shut down the parade by selectively targeting individuals who participated.

"While the police and civic leaders try to frighten us with the specter of downtown violence, we just want to participate in a communal celebration with our neighbors," said Elizabeth Burchfield. "We are tired of being afraid. It's time to organize together."

Read more and view photos | previous coverage: 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010

This is the twelfth and final chapter of the series “Hidden in Plain Sight: Media Workers for Social Change.” For the last two years Peter M published profiles and photos of people who have taken career paths outside of the media mainstream, at the service of the community around them.

This profile is of Jose Manuel Martinez, whose creative life has been story telling. As a recording artist he has worked in Rock, Latin Rock and Salsa. Now having just completed a Master’s degree in Education at Stanford University, he is an English teacher, relating to young people how stories can empower, and the ways they can bring people together.

Martinez said: “I started writing at a very, very young age. As a matter of fact, I was writing short stories for third and fourth graders when I was in the sixth grade. My principal at P.S. 115 in New York City had me on contract—my mom always brings this up—to produce a few stories a month, and he was really proud, you know. I’ve always had that type of imagination.”

Read Full Story and View Photo

See Blurbs for All 12 Stories in "Hidden in Plain Sight"

On September 8th, 2011, an art exhibit of children's drawings was banned by the Museum of Children's Art in Oakland (MOCHA). Much of the artwork was drawn by children participating in a "Let the Children Play And Heal" project. The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) organized "Let the Children Play and Heal" to give tens of thousands of children and youth in Gaza opportunities to express themselves though art, dance, music, story-telling, theater and puppetry; to get support from the larger community; and to have fun and just be children. It was developed to address the needs of traumatized children after the 2008/2009 Israeli assault on Gaza. Zionist organizations such as the Jewish Community Relations Council and Jewish Federation are suspected of having intimidated MOCHA into canceling the show, in order to deny an audience for the perspectives of Palestinians, despite the fact that MECA had been working with the museum for months planning the local exhibit. On September 23rd, a demonstration was held in front of MOCHA to protest the censorship.

MOCHA held firm that they would not allow the exhibit. MECA announced that the exhibit would open on the originally scheduled date anyway, outside rather than inside of MOCHA. What MECA kept under wraps until opening day was that they had secured an alternate venue for the exhibit just around the corner from MOCHA. As the exhibit was set to open on September 24th, MECA and supporters first gathered in the courtyard outside of the MOCHA building, displaying reproductions of the Gazan children's artwork. Less than half an hour later, an announcement was made about the new venue and the Brass Liberation Orchestra led supporters out of the courtyard, down the sidewalk, and around the corner to the new home for the exhibit. Hundreds of people attended the opening over the course of the next few hours. The exhibit is set to show at 917 Washington Street in Oakland through November 30th.

September 23rd Censorship Protest: Video & Photos | Photos
September 24th Exhibit Opening: Video & Photos

Santa Cruz Indymedia & SubRosa are pleased to present Ryan Harvey from Baltimore, MD, an engaging folk singer, incredible story teller, organizer and writer. He will be joined by Nomi, a fabulous folk from the Bay. This event is a record/CD release tour for Ryan Harvey's new album "Ordinary Heroes." It starts at 8pm on Wednesday, July 27th at SubRosa (703 Pacific Ave. at Spruce St.) in downtown Santa Cruz. Ryan and Nomi are also performing on Thursday in San Francisco at a benefit event called Operation Recovery.

Ryan Harvey, a part of the Riot-Folk Collective, has been writing & performing in social justice activist circles for over 10 years. From intimate basement shows to large rallies, Ryan has been "making folk a threat again" with his songs being a critical analysis of war, oppression and movements of resistance.

Event Details: Santa Cruz | San Francisco

Ryan Harvey Shares His Music and Politics on KPFK's Uprising | Ryan Harvey at the RCNV in 2006

CODEPINK Activists confronted GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty on his anti-gay and anti-reproductive rights stance at the annual America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) conference in San Francisco on June 16th. Showering the GOP presidential candidate with pink glitter and confetti, they shouted, "Where's your courage to stand up for gay and reproductive rights? Welcome to San Francisco, home of gay hero Harvey Milk!"

Meanwhile outside the Moscone Center where the convention was held, demonstrators rallied in favor of a single payer healthcare system and the removal of the health insurance industry. Satirical Billionaires for Wealthcare, "welcomed" conventioneers as they entered the building saying, "Keep the money flowing! We shareholders love those profits!" They carried a sign with a large photo of Pawlenty that read: Invest in America, buy a Congressman — or a Governor. Pawlenty is former governor of the state of Minnesota.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Video: 1 | 2 | 3

Single Payer Now | CODEPINK | Billionaires for Wealthcare

Fifty members of the Bay Area human rights community protested the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s (IPO) performance at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on February 27th, using chants, songs and street theater to highlight the IPO’s role in whitewashing Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. The orchestra’s performances are being met with protests in six of the seven cities on its US tour, including a protest at Carnegie Hall in New York and at Seattle’s Benaroya Opera House.

Concert-goers were greeted with a checkpoint proclaiming “Palestinians Must Stop, Israelis Can Go Around,” modeled after checkpoints in the West Bank where Palestinians are frequently forced to wait for hours. The mock checkpoint was guarded by soldiers armed with musical instruments morphing into guns. Protesters carried signs reading, “Don’t Harmonize With Apartheid,” “Israel Fiddles while Palestine Burns,” and “Justice Presto, Not Lento.” The protest also featured a kazoo band. Demonstrators banged pots and pans and blew whistles while chanting “drown out apartheid.”

Read More | New Yorkers protest Israel Philharmonic

On Saturday, February 12th, a benefit is being held for the Red Vic Movie House on Haight Street in San Francisco. Organizers state that "San Francisco is dangerously close to losing this 30-year old worker-owned community establishment. All the filmmakers and speakers in this series are donating 100% the box office revenue to the keep the Red Vic's doors open so they can continue to give voice to films like these that [the] mainstream does NOT want you you to see!"

Lovers + Liberators is a fund-raising event for the Red Vic that brings together three films with the themes of liberation and domestic "terrorism". The line-up includes ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE (1996), a documentary about the Black Panther Party and COINTELPRO, BOLD NATIVE (2010), addressing domestic “terrorism” and animal liberation, and THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR (1973), in which a CIA trainee turns out to be a black nationalist who goes on to train his own group of "Freedom Fighters" to engage in guerrilla warfare. Speakers throughout the screenings include Claude Marks of the Freedom Archives and Richard Brown of the SF8 on their experiences as targets of COINTELPRO; Jake Conroy, an animal liberation activist of 15 years and SHAC7 co-defendent who spent three years in federal prison as a result of his above-ground activism targeting Huntington Life Sciences and Ben Rosenfeld, a Bay area lawyer who's focusing his efforts defending Green Scare defendants; and Bold Native filmmakers Casey Suchan and Denis Henry Hennelly.

Event Announcement | Red Vic Movie House

Previous Indybay Feature on Bold Native Premier at the Red Vic

San Francisco women's rights activists turned out some of their best street theater for an anti-abortion crowd of thousands that marched through the city on Saturday. Following an opening rally, which at least one anti-choice visitor tried to interrupt, women's rights demonstrators walked along the Embarcadero, shadowing the "Walk for Life" march. Protesters for women's health chanted loudly; a couple performed racy dances at various spots alongside the anti-choice march, shocking their opponents. Prochoice activists said that what is more shocking, however, is "the extremes to which the right wing will go to deny women health care."'

Most of the anti-abortion crowd were bused in from outside the Bay Area. They carried large banners with religious icons; some hoisted graphic photos and drawings of what they claimed to be the "products of abortion". Costumes on the anti-choice side included Uncle Sam and angel get-ups. This was the seventh annual march and counter-march in the city of San Francisco held to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the ruling that came down in favor of women's rights in 1973.

Videos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | Audio: 1

BACORR (Bay Area Coalition for our Reproductive Rights)

Previous years of SF "Walk For Life" counter-protests: 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Last week Rainforest Action Network's Change Chevron team asked people to call Chevron CEO John Watson and congratulate him for being inducted into Corporate Accountability International's Corporate Hall of Shame. The same day, Rainforest Action Network activists teamed up with the Raging Grannies, boarding a biodiesel bus to deliver an enlarged Corporate Hall of Shame certificate to Watson at his home in Lafayette, California.

Chevron is currently facing a multi-billon dollar lawsuit in Ecuador for dumping over 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste onto the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples and small farmers in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest during the course of three decades of oil drilling. Despite mountains of irrefutable scientific evidence, Chevron refuses to take responsibility for one of the world’s worst ecological disasters.

Read more | video

Rainforest Action Network | Corporate Accountability International | Raging Grannies

On January 20th, a meeting on the USF campus was held in protest of the sudden and unannounced shutdown of 34-year-old college station KUSF the day before. A $3.75 million sale of the station's FCC license occurred January 18th, in a secret deal of which almost nobody at the station had prior knowledge.

Shocked and outraged station personnel, supporters, students, a media studies professor, and other media made up close to 500 people who rallied outside the packed auditorium. Those in the hall demanded explanations and a better resolution from unapologetic school president Reverend Steven A. Privett, who made the deal. Reverend Privett was willing to address the outraged group for over an hour and a half, but he just kept repeating lines like “cost-benefit” decisions for students and saying that he had no obligation to the larger community. He hid behind the secretive “non-disclosure agreement," often chiding speakers for their level of passion. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi attended.

Station personnel are speaking out on KPOO and KALX radio shows as well as in other media. Organizing information can be found at kusf-archives.org. Supporters plan to attend the Board of Supervisors meeting January 25th at 1pm at City Hall.

Full story

The 34th America's Cup will be held in San Francisco in 2013 and hundreds of thousands of tourists are expected to come to see the sailing races. Critics fear that the No Sit-Lie Law recently created by the passage of Proposition L will be especially enforced during the event and tenants will be required to move away from new construction areas. Still others are concerned about expenditures including an estimated $4 million for a beefed up police presence.

Cup fans point to positive aspects of the regatta saying the event can create an increase in employment and city revenue. However, detractors have responded that any jobs created will be not be full-time permanent jobs; they argue that most of the benefits will go to private business. They fear that the city could actually lose money on the deal.

America's Cup Costs SF $31 million plus | Welcome the America's Cup to San Francisco